The Unknown Virus

Chapter 1

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I sighed. Lunch was over. Which meant, time for my next class. Math. God, I sucked at math. Like, seriously, it's worse then Spanish, and Spanish is hard too. Teach me about how to pay my taxes, not how to find the square root of a plastic tube or something stupid. Sighing, I dumped my tray and headed to my next class. As soon as I sat down, I started zoning out. I don't need to pay attention to get good grades. I was a straight A student, and I've been tuning out my teachers everyday for the past 12 years, and I've never gotten a grade below a 98. Amazing, considering my mother says I have the attention span of a goldfish.

I sat down at my desk at the very back of the room. It was warmer back there, and I had thin skin and poor circulation, so it was perfect for me. A few minutes later, my friend Alice Worcester came and sat next to me. Because she was short, had blond-white hair, and had eyes so blue, they looked like sapphires, she kind of reminded me of Alice in Alice in Wonderland. And it didn't help that she liked to dress in cute little blue dresses, with white tights, and black shoes. I guess she took my friendly teasing and thought it would be cool. Which it was, but I teased her anyways, but in a sisterly teasing way, not a mean way. But regardless of that, Alice was beautiful. She's broken more hearts then I've seen, which is saying something (considering my mom is a doctor and I've watched her perform autopsy's). I've known Alice since we were both eight. Some people were picking on her because she had braces and glasses, so I went over and made those kids eat their teeth. Alice and I have been friends ever since, even when she got her braces taken off, could now wear contacts, and didn't need my protection anymore. Now, we are inseparable.

"Hi Raven!" Alice said happily. Oh, no. What did she want? She was never happy in math class.

"Hey Alice. How are you?" I said, carefully.

"I'm doing good," she said, smiling. "So, are you going to The Twins party today?" There it was.

"Alice, I'm not going to Brander and Damien's party."

"Oh come on Raven! They are your brother's friends. I thought you liked them!"

"I like the whole gang, but I'm not going to the party just to see your flirt and me be uncomfortable. Its a senior party anyways." My older brother, Salem, whom is 18, 2 years older then me, and his friends were having a party for their fellow seniors. End of the year party kind of thing. "The gang" was Salem, The Twins, whom were Brander and Damien, and Jay.

Salem looked like me, only he had shorter black hair and stormy blue eyes, and I had long black hair with jade green eyes. Jay had black hair too, only he had longer hair, so he had bangs covering his left eye, and the tips of his bangs were blue. Brander and Damien looked identical, except Damien dyed his roots blond, so he wouldn't get mixed up with his twin. So Damien was blond and Brander had brown hair.

"Oh, come on, Jay is hot, with a capital 'H!' Hope one day I can get on top of that."

"Ewww."

"You only say that because your in a relationship." Which was true. I was in a relationship, and we were deeply in love. I understand a lot of people say that, but we've known each other since we were six. We have been through a lot together. Depression, suicidal moments, cutting, drugs, drinking, we've been through it all, and we've picked each other up every time we fell. I couldn't live without him, and I know he felt the same way, just by looking into his warm, icy blue eyes that hide behind his longish black hair. We were perfect for each other.

"Well, maybe you should forget Jay and start looking for someone else. Like, why don't you and your twin date the twins. Because, like, didn't I tell you last week that Jay wasn't interested?"

"Anne has a boyfriend, so, that's not a good idea anyways. And yea, but maybe this week he changed his mind." Alice got that lovesick look on her face she got when she dreamed of a life with Jay. It was so weird to me. Why was she trying so hard? She had me ask every week since she first saw him if he liked her, and he always said no.

I was just about to tell her he would never be interested when our math teacher, Ms. Burbine, walked in and went straight to the front of the class. She was a small, old, and fragile looking women who came straight from Cannes, France. Why anyone would hire a french woman in America for anything other then French class is beyond me. Her accent was so thick at times, it was sometimes very hard to understand her.

"Now class, today we will be learning about--" I began zoning out. I didn't care right now. I just wanted to go home. Me and my boyfriend, Ash, had a date tonight. We were going stargazing tonight in the back of his pickup truck. How romantic. Me and him, with a bunch of blankets and pillows, watching the sunset, and then laying together, looking at the stars, and holding each other tightly...

"Attention all students and staff." The principle suddenly came on over the intercom. "Please remain in your classrooms. We are now going into a code red. I repeat, we are in code red." There was a new system that was required at most schools. Code green, which is we were in the clear and no one was coming to kill us, which is the code we were normally on. Code yellow, which is close the doors, shut off the lights, close the window shades, and keep teaching, just be on alert because there could be someone dangerous at the school. Code red, shut the doors, shut off the lights, close the shades, stop teaching, and hide your students somewhere that if the attacker looked into the room, they wouldn't be seen. We had drills like this all the time, so this was no surprise. All we had to do was go to where the teacher directs us and stay quiet.